The Cause of It All!

"Capricorn Cat" ~ our first real "catamaran exposure" eight, nine and ten years ago!
This boat used to be owned by a wonderful couple, Blair and Joanie (they have since sold the boat).
In Zihautanejo, they would take groups of cruisers out for a daysail and snorkle trip.
We got to go!
We also did some "Wet Wednesday" races and Jim raced in the Banderas Bay Regatta one year on this cat.
Blair was kind enough to "lend" his Multihull magazines to Jim, with me protesting as I knew a monster was being created.
After the monster was fully created, we took "Thistle" back to Alta California and Jim the monster researched and searched for a catamaran.
Four years of searching brought us to "Meerkat".
The monster was happy.
So this boat started it all!
Thanks to Blair and Joanie for sharing their boat, magazines and knowledge!We love this boat!

P.S. "Capricorn Cat" is fine ~ just being moved into her summer slip by the awesome marina staff!

While Jim is Away...

No, I do not "play"...

I started some sewing projects, one being individual sun shades for all the hatches.
These will be velcro'ed up in place of the bug screens while I am in California to help (hopefully) keep the boat cooler mainly so I don't lose my wine stash and when we have the boat closed up and the air conditioner on.I had to get creative by sewing Sunbrella scraps together for them, as I didn't have any large pieces of material.
The ones going in the main salon are quite creative as well...
Using extra towels!

Another project took up a half hour or so this morning.
Jim had home roasted a batch of coffee beans.
You can almost smell them, can't you?For the last few days, I didn't have much trust in the Ziploc bag they were in.
But did I change the bag or place a second bag around the original faulty, piece of crap bag?
Nooo....
So this morning when I picked the bag up, half the beans spilled out into the cupboard.
So I spent the next half hour picking them up and then mixing them all together, so each cup of coffee would have a little of whatever was in the bottom of the cupboard in it.
What fun!

I also eat "Non-Irish" (even though I am Irish).
Meaning no "meat and potatoes"!
The awesome bakery several blocks away provides the bread.
I provide the veggies!
My favorite is mayo, cream cheese, avocado and cucumber.
I do experiment with red bell peppers, tomatoes, red onion - whatever is on sale and looks good!Pasta salads with all these vegetables work too...

On a non-healthy note, I am working my way through our last box of Cheese Itz by myself!

Found some chick flicks in the book exchange and am enjoying those.

And today, I got to talk to and see the entire family on skype as they were doing a Father's Day Brunch together!
I tried to get them all in front of the camera at the same time, but then just settled on Jim!You try getting 20 people to stand together for a minute at one of my family gatherings...
Not going to happen!

Oh, I'm going to scrub the floor and heads while he is gone too, but not til I watch the rest of the chick flicks hope I can find a bunch more movies then I can always use that excuse...

Jim Heads to SoCal

Jim flew to Alta California (in lieu of Baja California) this afternoon, from LAP to LAX!

He will be in Ventura for a few weeks doing a few projects (one of which will be to clean out his truck...), doing a little visiting and shopping of course!

Speaking of shopping...
I had three successful shopping adventures in just the last 24 hours!

One, VELCRO!
An entire roll - 20 meters for 56 pesos!!
Less than $5.50 US.So I can work on some of my sewing projects while he is gone.

Then a visit to the fancy one price "dollar store" called "Waldo's" (we call it "Where's Waldo"), where I found 12 toothbrushes all for the low, low price of 12 pesos!
What a bargain!Then today after John and I took Jim to the airport, John took me to a small bakery up the "Rancho Viejo Street". The bakery is in a family's garage next to their house. They have a wood oven behind the garage where they bake the most wonderful bolillos AND IT'S IN WALKING DISTANCE FROM THE MARINA!
I'm set!
I can fend for myself while Jim is gone as long as I don't have to drive anywhere.

I will fly up to meet Jim in a week or two, so I too can visit and shop and help decide what goes into the truck.
Then we will drive his truck back down to La Paz, taking a few days on a Baja roadtrip!

Monks on The Malecon

The other night we watched a ceremony on the Malecon conducted by four monks from the Gashar Tawon Khangtsen Monastery in southern India.

Per the monks blog (yes, they have a blog!):
"The original Tibetan monastery was destroyed shortly after the occupation of Tibet and only 9 monks from that monastery managed to escape. Once in India they set to rebuild the monastery and it has grown since. H.H. the Dalai Lama recognizes this monastery as one of the cornerstones for the effort to maintain the Tibetan culture and traditions alive while in exile".

As part of the "Tibetan Monks 10th World Peace Tour" they spent some time in Baja and ended their visit to La Paz with this ceremony “to help eliminate negative forces in the environment in which we live.”

I'm all for eliminating negative forces, so talked Jim into walking a mile down the Malecon to see this.












The ceremony consisted of chanting, praying, a little drum and bell playing and the most heartfelt thank you speech in English for the hospitality and friendship the local business people provided to them.
It really was lovely and not something you see everyday!I also enjoyed watching the reactions of the locals, especially some of the kids!
This boy got a little sleepy towards the end...but the girls in crocs (shown in previous post) were mesmerized the entire ceremony.

For more information, see their blog at:
http://monksinbaja.wordpress.com/

And You Thought Crocs Weren't Fashionable...

As Crocs are the only shoes we wear...
We are fashionable here in La Paz!Or at least we are with little girls from the age of 3 to 12...

As Santana Would Sing "It's Gonna Be a Hot One"

Having a little heat wave here in Southern Baja...
At 4:00 pm yesterday it was 106 degrees at the airport.High for the day was 107.
Supposed to be the same for the next several days.
The nights get down in to the 60's (oh yipee!) or we would never sleep ~ a temperature swing of 40 degrees!

Translations

Ok, Jim figured this one out by sounding it out...
It's stamped all over the place on cement lids on the sidewalk.Come on, you can do it...
Drainage!

But this on my water bottle, just doesn't quite make sense to me.Does this water contribute to "active elimination"?
Does this mean we can drink this in our old age and not worry about eating enough fiber?

My Famous Sister

My sister's crafts made it in a magazine!
The funny part is that the magazine is not a "craft" magazine, but - get this - "Playgirl"!
Wonder what my Mom thinks of this one...
For the full story (which is well worth reading), see her blog.
The link is "Elizabeth's great sense of humor" under my "Favorite Blogs & Websites" listing.And one of her etsy shop's link is "My sister, Elizabeth and her cool stuff to buy for gifts!", also under my "Favorite Blogs & Websites" listing.
Congratulations Liz-beth!

Cockpit Crockpot Cooking

95 degrees at 11:00 am and it's only the beginning of June...
I have figured out where and how I will be doing my summer cooking.
In the crockpot in the cockpit.Doesn't heat up the inside of the boat and makes the neighbors drool always fun to watch the neighbors drool since we have nothing else to do.
And being in the "land of tough meat" this will be the way to go.
Look for my Cockpit Crockpot Cook Book try to say that five times fast full of tough meat recipes soon to be in Mexican bookstores yeah, right.

Music on The Malecon

After being depressed about missing Alejandra's party (which we heard did go until 3:00 am and everyone had a great time) we made another deposit into The Karma Bank by pulling a man out of the water and on to the dock, after he failed to successfully complete the departure of a small sailing dinghy and arrival on the dock himself. That was two deposits on one weekend. Should take us through the next few days...

With the clouds we get beautiful sunsets over The Mogote.


So a walk down The Malecon was in order!



Plus at the plaza there was a book fair and artistic festival.
We listened to (and watched!) this group play the drums, dance with fire and even walk on stilts.



It's a little over a mile each way to the plaza, so at least we are getting some exercise in this heat!

Alejandra's Quinceanera That We Were Invited To But Missed Due to a Little Mix-Up

Per Wikipedia:
"The Quinceañera or Quince años is, in some Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas, a young woman's celebration of her fifteenth birthday, which is commemorated in a unique and different way from her other birthdays. It is sometimes represented XV Años, meaning "15 years." Only a few countries call the actual party "quinceañera."

John, Jim and I were SO excited to be invited to Arnulfo & Estrella's daughter's Quinceanera! I did a little research on them, so I would know what to expect. Jim and John actually put PANTS on! I put a nice dress on but wore flip flop Crocs as no way was I going to be walking around a small town with dirt roads in heels! We had a gift all wrapped! And we thought we would be fashionably late arriving an hour into the party...

Wrong...

Someone heard "Fiesta is at 3:00 pm", when someone should have heard "Mass is at 7:00 pm with the fiesta after".

So we arrived at "La Concha" as the trucks were unloading 100 tables and 400 chairs. Estrella, Oralia and Vero were setting up tables, taping table cloths on them, and arranging chairs. The three ladies were dressed in tennis shoes, shorts & t-shirts. Here I come in a dress and pearls...

So me, being me, help set up tables and spend at least an hour with Vero taping table cloths to tables in the wind and dust and on dirty Corona tables - why didn't the party rental place wash the tables before they brought them - oh to get my black dress all dirty. Jim and John helped set up tables then went to get us a cold cerveza (thank you!).

Then we drove down the dirt road to get all the decorations, and Vero and I put them all out, with a little help from Vero and Ricado's boys, Ricky and Chumbo and Arnulfo & Estrella's boy, Arnulfo. These three boys are so sweet, cute and hilarious.

Vero kept joking that is was "Her fiesta" and "Heather's fiesta" because we were doing all the work... and she had some choice Mexican cuss words for some of the men standing around doing nothing.

So back to the house to see the lovely Alejandra and her proud parents!So the real problem was that we were 45 minutes away from La Paz...
With the road being a two lane highway with cows...
There was no way we could stay out there late and enjoy the party, then drive back in the dark.
Had we known, we would have packed clothes, blankets & pillows in to the back of my car and slept in it.
The three of us were just sick that we missed the whole party...
They had a band, food, kegs of beer, party favors, a dance floor and more.
And the party would probably go until 3:00 am maybe this is where "someone" heard 3 o'clock?...
We really felt honored to be invited to such a special occasion.
I don't think there was going to be a whole lot of gringos there either...
Then to top it off, Ricardo was on his way out there with additional tables and decorations in his truck and his truck broke down just outside of La Paz.
So he was borrowing a car from his father, but was going to be late...

I figure it was another deposit in to "The Karma Bank", as we helped with the preparations for three hours... oh please, oh please, oh please, be there a real "Karma Bank"

So we are still sad about it...

A Boat Name for Alan & Clouds

Here is a boat with owners who have a sense of humor~~~Similar to Alan's nickname of monohulls ~ "Half Boat", only these people had the nerve to paint it on the back of their boat!

And clouds!
How we love them here!In Ventura, we would be depressed on a day like today.
It would be dreary and cold.
Here it keeps it at "no temperature"...
It's a perfect 81 degrees inside the boat & 82 degrees outside the boat at noon!